State Forest Management Organisations in Europe: A comparison using Principal Component Analysis and Cluster Analysis (original) (raw)
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Forests
State Forest Management Organizations (SFMOs) play a crucial role in the European forest sector, managing almost half of the forests in the region. SFMOs are often only managed for timber production, whereas, being publicly owned, they should play an important role in providing a vast range of public goods (e.g., soil protection, biodiversity conservation). Their management goals depend on the history and current conditions of the forest sector at a national level, as well as different challenges and the potential for development. Although there is a lack of knowledge about the current performance of SFMOs, there have been recent changes to their management goals and practices in response to the new demands expressed by society (e.g., transparency, social inclusion). The main purpose of this study was to analyze the current situation of SFMOs by grouping them with the help of a Cluster Analysis according to indicators that reflect the three pillars of the common understanding of the sustainable forest management (SFM) concept. Additionally, in light of the differences in the forest practices and management priorities in each country, we used Principal Component Analysis (PCA) to group countries according to common characteristics of the forest sector at the national level. The results showed three main clusters of SFMOs in Europe. The first cluster had a rather small but commercially-oriented forestry unit together with other business activities and a strong focus on public services. The second focused on public interest, rather than commercially-oriented organizations. The third is mainly profit-seeking. The existence of diverse SFMO clusters shows the possibility of different approaches for SFM with a focus on different goals (e.g., profit gaining, public service delivery).
The current document is one of the outputs of the project Implementing criteria and indicators for sustainable forest management in Europe which had the main objective of analyzing the implementation of criteria and indicators (C&I) for sustainable forest management (SFM) in the 46 signatory states of FOREST EUROPE. The present study transcends the national boundaries of the FOREST EUROPE signatory states and analyzes the implementation of the C&I for SFM at different geographic scales, and in particular it addresses the sub-national contexts of Germany and Italy, and the national context of the Russian Federation. These three areas have been selected as case studies for their heterogeneity and diversity, especially concerning forest types and governmental-administrative structures. The varying characteristics of the areas under study are reflected in the differences among the national and sub-national C&I implementations which are displayed and reflected upon in the current document.
National Implementation of the Forest Europe Indicators for Sustainable Forest Management
Forests
The development of criteria and indicators (C&I) to generate information about the status quo and measure changes in sustainable forest management (SFM) has become ever more important. Forest Europe has developed C&I as a policy instrument to monitor and report about SFM. Forest Europe signatories considered the definition of SFM and related C&I as the most recognized achievements of the process. The results of our survey verify this statement. C&I for SFM are implemented at the national level in half of the Forest Europe signatory countries. C&I have served as a structure and framework for the national derivations. Our results confirm the importance of C&I for monitoring and reporting on the status and trend of forests and forestry in Europe. However, Forest Europe has failed so far to go beyond description toward target-based assessments. This was originally not envisaged for the indicators but is increasingly requested by decision-makers and stakeholders. The future development o...
The monitoring of environmental policies in Europe has taken place since the 1980s and still remains a challenge for decision- and policy-making. For forests, it is concretized through the publication of a State Of Europe’s Forests every five years, the last report just been released. However, the process lacks a clear analytical framework and appears limited to orient and truly assess sustainable management of European forests. We classified the 34 quantitative sustainable forest management indicators in the Driver-Pressure-State-Impact-Response (DPSIR) framework to analyse gaps in the process. In addition, we classified biodiversity-related indicators in the simpler Pressure-State-Response (PSR) framework. We showed that most of the sustainable forest management indicators assess the state of European forests, but almost half could be classified in another DPSIR category. For biodiversity, most indicators describe pressures, while direct taxonomic state indicators are very few. Ou...
Ecological Indicators, 2016
Since the beginning of the 1990s, the notion of Criteria and Indicators (C&I) as a framework for evaluating sustainable forest management (SFM) rapidly gained interest. There have been several international processes and initiatives related to the development of C&I as a tool for defining SFM and measuring its progress. In Europe, a set of criteria and indicators was developed in 1998 by FOREST EUROPE, former Ministerial Conference on the Protection of Forests in Europe (MCPFE). However, until recently, insufficient information has been available on how the pan-European C&I have been used and what their real impact has been. A recent study 1 (the "CI-SFM" project) conducted by the European Forest Institute (EFI) is the first effort to collect information on the implementation of the pan-European C&I in the 46 signatory states of the FOREST EUROPE process. The study analyzed how and to what extent the pan-European C&I have been used at the pan-European and national levels, investigated challenges and gaps in its implementation, and explored opportunities for further improvement. However, there is need for a prioritization and a more specific query on the factors influencing the implementation of the pan-European C&I in order to identify the major cornerstones for further use and priority areas for action. Thus, building on the findings from the EFI study, the main objective of this article is to analyze the SWOT factors (Strengths (S)-Weaknesses (W)-Opportunities (O)-Threats (T)) of the pan-European C&I in order to determine and prioritize the major constraints and future possibilities of their use and implementation. The results show that in order to consider the pan-European C&I as a powerful tool for promoting sustainable forest management, both at national, sub-national and pan-European levels, a number of factors (e.g. data availability and quality, cross-sectoral communication, conceptual validity, clear objectives, capacity building) that influence the implementation of the indicator set require further research and action by policy makers and relevant stakeholders.
Ecology and Society, 2012
The choice between different forest management practices is a crucial step in short, medium, and long-term decision making in forestry and when setting up measures to support a regional or national forest policy. Some conditions such as biogeographically determined site factors, exposure to major disturbances, and societal demands are predetermined, whereas operational processes such as species selection, site preparation, planting, tending, or thinning can be altered by management. In principle, the concept of a forest management approach provides a framework for decision making, including a range of silvicultural operations that influence the development of a stand or group of trees over time. These operations vary among silvicultural systems and can be formulated as a set of basic principles. Consequently, forest management approaches are essentially defined by coherent sets of forest operation processes at a stand level.
European Journal of Forest Research, 2012
It is becoming increasingly apparent that the institutional dimension is of critical importance for achieving sustainable development, which is why the view that it should be considered as a fourth dimension of sustainability is acquiring increased support. It is argued that the institutional dimension represents an important challenge to the full integration of the economic, social and environmental sustainability objectives within the necessary institutional setting. But despite its importance, the latter is often neglected when it comes to scientific assessments of sustainability performance. A fact that holds particularly true for the forestry sector. The aim of the present paper is to describe and discuss how the institutional dimension of sustainability can be incorporated into a Sustainability Impact Assessment of the European Forest-Wood-Chain (FWC) by using a policy database developed within the context of EFORWOOD. The policy database, covering all policies of key relevance to FWCsustainability, was employed for the purpose of connecting the EFORWOOD sustainability indicators to its institutional and political background. This connection provides direct and detailed insights into the governance structures prevailing in the European forest-based sector and thereby into the institutional dimension of FWC-sustainability. The results illustrate that FWC-sustainability is governed and regulated rather inconsistently by the many political institutions involved, various types of policies in force, and different modes of governance applied. The connection between the EFORWOOD sustainability indicators and a comprehensive database of sector-related policies thus presents a feasible approach for overcoming the lack of consideration given to the institutional sphere of sustainability.
Forests
In recent decades, the concept of forest certification under the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) has been widely adopted in selected Southeast European countries (Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Serbia, and Slovenia). As sustainability is traditionally recognised as a leading principle in the forest management doctrine in these countries, the aim of this study was to understand whether, and how, FSC forest certification contributes to the sustainable management of state forests. The research was carried out in two phases. First, in order to assess forest management compliance with FSC standard, non-conformities for the period 2014–2018, identified in audit Public Summary Reports, were analysed in all public companies that managed state-owned forests in selected countries. Further, in-depth, semi-structured interviews with the professionals responsible for forest certification in these companies were conducted (n = 11) to determine the contribution of forest certification to the ec...
Scandinavian Journal of Forest Research, 2008
The cluster concept in economics contributes to new research on the forest sector's role in national and regional economies, yet incompatible cluster definitions and a variety of methodologies impede an objective comparison of findings. However, governmental statistical reporting systems are not well suited for a direct assessment of the forest sector due to classificatory and methodological shortcomings. This research presents a more standardized approach in the form of a statistics-based method for forest sector benchmarking and monitoring. The specification of the method included an extended cluster definition based on the Classification of Economic Activities in the European Union (NACE) and the validation of two suitable national statistical reporting systems. Testing the method in a case study for Germany demonstrates its capacity to provide consistent socioeconomic information on forest and wood-based industries in a sectoral, spatial and temporal dimension. In 2004, the German forest cluster accounted for 100,000 companies, 150 billion Euro gross turnover and over 900,000 employees (approximately 3.5% of the national economy) and ranked among the strongest manufacturing sectors. Individual wood-based industries indicated regional concentrations in federal states of Germany. Over the past decade, the forest sector was marked by considerable losses in turnover and employment, which increasingly deviated from the overall economic development of Germany. The research contributes to a more standardized, empirical understanding of the forest sector's role in national and regional economies, supporting rational decision making in cluster policy and management.